The Wild West and Sex Slavery Ch. 10

In a sort of half-serious, half-sarcastic tone, Max Klug said, "As for shoplifters, the Bible says that thieves may be enslaved. If you were going to be enslaved, would you rather be having sex on a nice air-conditioned sex boat with healthy food and medical care or helping to break rocks for the construction of Solomon's temple?"

Lena pointedly looked over at the dinner table and observed that salads were at the places. Mrs. Altschule, in a show of hospitality, said, "Lena, you must be famished; please take your place between me and Jeb and have some food."

This is not where Lena would have chosen to sit, but there was no way to do anything about it, even after Jeb gave her a little pat on the thigh as she sat down.

Hoping to learn something without having to talk too much herself or listen to more of Mrs. Altschule's insanity, Lena asked, "Deputy Director Klug, I heard a rumor that the actions of a legal authority of some sort named Brownell and a man I met in Hamburg, Rev. Powell, have led to some controversy in the Free States. Could you address that?"

"Attorney General Herbert Brownell and Spiritual Advisor Harold Powell believe that the county sheriffs have developed too much autonomy and established local fiefdoms in which they are the law. I see their point as a matter of policy, but they are fighting an uphill battle given the Free States' Constitution."

"What do you mean?"

"One of the main reasons the United States cracked up is that the states that became the Free States were incensed about federal control of what happened within their states. Thus, when the Free States Constitution was written about 15 years ago, the central Confederate government was limited to handling foreign policy, national defense, and actual travel between states and foreign countries. Even within each state, local counties are given a lot of autonomy. This means the sheriffs don't have to worry much about getting called on the carpet by the central Confederate government or even their state government. Ironically, the sheriffs have developed a nationwide organization to coordinate law enforcement, transfer persons in penal servitude, and maintain their autonomy. You met the association's current president, Sheriff Hawley."

"Neck, this Powell man, he is the man I met in Hamburg a few months ago?" Lena asked.

"Yep," Neck answered.

"He seemed kind of gruff and did not seem to like me much," Lena said.

"No, that ain't true. He did not like you bein such a flirt, but he told me that he had a lot of respect for your intelligence and courage. By the way, he also said you were the most dangerous woman he'd ever met and that I was a damn fool if I tangled with you.

"Long ago, Rev. Powell inherited a bit of money after his wife died in a tragic drownin accident. Everyone expected him to remarry, neglect his stepchildren and live the good life, but he focused on takin care of the stepchildren and pushin a rather otherworldly agenda. I don't like it myself, as I think he'd like everyone to have two or three children and stop havin sex entirely. All this Puritan-type shit and some people say Powell ain't even a proper minister. He's too damn smart, and I'm not sure how he got where he is. He sure knows how to finagle."

Klug elaborated, "Rev. Powell is a very restrained and self-disciplined man and expects everyone else to be like him. He got where he is, in my view, by being right about a lot of things, including the need not to antagonize other countries unnecessarily. Also, he and Brownell are not alone in thinking that the sheriffs may have gone too far in promoting the sort of morality urged by Mrs. Altschule."

"That's right, and that's why Brownell and Powell are such a danger and why it is so important to resist them getting in the way of the sheriffs, the boats and our way of life," Jeb Altschule said. "Let them keep going, and next thing you know, we'll be hearing about due process and equal protection and all that other liberal nonsense. I'm sure that Dick Haydrick and the rest of his Ministry of State Security people won't allow things to go that far, but they will build on what Brownell and Powell want to investigate the hell out of everyone in the name of fighting local corruption."

"Sounds to me like a fight between the strict, joyless Puritans and salacious, patriarchal sexists to me," Lena blurted out. "I'm not sure which I like less. How about women being allowed to control their bodies and everyone having as much fun as they can, given the limits on the happiness of this short, miserable human existence?"

Neck and Galton laughed out loud; the Klugs suppressed their laughs. Loman, Mrs. Altschule and Jeb Altschule were outraged, and Ralph Semmes looked embarrassed. The two indentured servants who were pouring coffee hid their faces and ran to the kitchen to compose themselves.

Lena realized that if she had been trying to shift the discussion to calmer subjects, she had failed completely. After an awkward silence, Lena took a big bite of sweet potato and said, "These yams are just wonderful. Whoever cooked this should open a restaurant in Hamburg."

"I'm sure they would love to," Mrs. Altschule said in a dour tone, "and maybe they will after they complete their terms as indentured servants."

Another of Lena's attempts to make pleasant conversation, having failed miserably, she resolved to just keep her mouth shut except to insert food. That proved to be impossible for long because, after two minutes, Jeb blurted out, "The good news is that with the new drugs, you can get in twenty years of working as a sex slave and creating beautiful blond children even though you've started so damn old. If they freeze some of your eggs, you could be breeding the rest of your life."

Lena just about spit out the tiny piece of prime rib that she was trying to eat just to be a gracious guest, and even Mrs. Altschule thought that Jeb was a bit direct.

"You'll have to forgive, Jeb; he sometimes says what everyone is thinking when everyone else has the sense to keep their thoughts to themselves," Mrs. Altschule said.

After Lena composed herself, she asked, "I do not necessarily agree with your policies, but I can understand that there was a desire for women in the so-called Free States to have a lot of children per woman when so many fertile women had fled to other countries in 2031. I cannot understand continuing that now when presumably the girls who could not flee in 2031 are of childbearing age. Also, I understand that the children of the women on the boats are not even kept in the Free States but are sold to other countries."

"Sold is not the right word," Rev. Loman interjected indignantly, "they are placed in the homes of people in the SDSA, the PMSA and Europe who could not be bothered to have their own children or waited too long to try to do so. Naturally, we have to charge a fee to defray expenses.

"I might add that despite their outward love of the darker races, many of the pale folks in the North, West and EU seem to appreciate the fact that the children conceived on the boats all have complexions similar to theirs."

Lena shot back, "I did not mean to suggest that the SDSA, the PMSA, or the EU have only highly enlightened world citizens. Frankly, I find some of the feminists in those countries to be too much like what you say of Rev. Powell. Feminists do not need to be anti-sex or restrict themselves to queer sex. Further, there is racial prejudice in those places. In fact, as you may have heard, I have nearly gotten killed by Fascists in Germany."

"We did hear about that," Max Klug said. "You should be worried about a problem we have here. Some people in the Free States are Nazis too and are in contact with the Reichsbürger mad at you."

"Scheiss"

"Some of the Stoners you may have heard of believe that adulteresses should be stoned by people who are without sin. Others here believe that Hitler was right and believe that women they call 'race traitors' should be executed or at least forced to spend their lives in strict bondage as breeding animals for the master race they tried to betray," Klug said.

"The fact that Hitler is admired by anyone amazes me," Lena said. "Have not the Brownshirts in your country heard that as a result of Hitler, Germany lost millions of people and huge amounts of territory. As a nationalist even, Hitler was a miserable failure."

Lena was happy that dessert was being served and just listened to Dr. Galton and Rev. Loman disagree on whether birth control was the same as abortion. Dr. Galton insisted that the Free States would be better off if they allowed birth control on the boats as the new breast pumps, although a major improvement over the old ones, still only delayed ovulation by a few months.

"The boats sure could make a lot more dough," Neck said, "if they did not have to take women out of providin sex services for pregnancy, not to mention that the costs of carin for preggers women are another big fuckin expense."

Rev. Loman exploded, saying that Dr. Galton and Neck, in their own way, were as bad as Lena. "Birth control is close enough to abortion that it should be treated the same. And you lechers are going to hell on the same train as Frau Fesch and the other libertines.

"And what is also sad is that I am not sure you libertines are even all that happy in this life. All the liberated women in the North, West and Europe seem to me to be a lot less happy than the women who follow the word in the Free States. I read about lonely women up North who get six useless college degrees and can't find a man suitable for their highly-educated selves, while the women here marry nice men at age 17 and are contented to focus their lives as God intended on their man, their children and God."

Lena had had three glasses of wine and some excellent rum she had had with her peach cobbler. These beverages had revived her sense of injustice enough that she pushed back on a number of things that had been said. "Auch, Jesu Christus, no one is saying that people cannot be simple, naïve peasants if that is what they want to do But you have developed a society where that is all women can..".

"All that women are supposed to," Mrs. Altschule said, interrupting.

"All that women can do," Lena continued. "Except for a privileged few, women cannot go to college without risking becoming indentured servants for two decades. Women who commit petty crimes are also made into breeding sex slaves for twenty years. And let me ask you all two questions: first, do women over 60 or women who are not suitable for the boats for one reason or another get charged with adultery or sodomy?"

"Now you are starting to sound like Brownell," Klug said with a smirk. "He complains about selective prosecution by the sheriffs all the time.

"I conclude that the answer is that the only ones sentenced to long terms for adultery or having sexual relations with another woman are women who can be turned into sex slaves," Lena said.

After a short pause, Lena asked, "And what about all these theft prosecutions? Did the women involved commit any theft?"

"Of course, they did... well, many of them did," Max Klug said in a tone somewhere between embarrassment and mirth.

"Again, you are missing the point," Mrs. Altschule said. "They were not doing what they should do."

"And the women on the boats for adultery, did they all commit adultery?" Lena continued.

"I'm pretty sure most did," Klug said, "although you would probably complain about entrapment were you one of them."

"Lena would not have to be entrapped, the whore of Babylon," Rev. Loman said.

"You need not hurl insults, Pastor," Captain Semmes said. "Lena is a guest here tonight."

"I have been called worse, Captain," Lena said before asking calmly, "Mrs. Altschule, did you report your daughter's crime that led her to be sold at auction?"

"Yes, it was my duty."

"And did she commit the crime?"

"Yet again, Frau Lecher, you are missing the point," Mrs. Altschule said, causing Mrs. Klug and Captain Semmes to grimace.

"Hell, I think the whore is better off," Jeb said. "I think she enjoyed getting branded, and when I saw her on the Sultan, I think she enjoyed having all that sex in bondage; at least, it looked that way to me. She seemed to be having a big ole O despite the gag."

Everyone at the party except Mrs. Altschule raised their eyebrows at Jeb's remarks.

"Did you have sex with your own sister on the Sultan," Lena exclaimed.

"No, of course not, you dirty-minded Marxist. I just watched a friend of mine do it while I had another girl," Jeb responded. "And I know Debbie is having fun on the Venetian because I have watched her in ecstasy any number of times with a bunch of different guys. NOT ME, though."

There was another pause while that information was processed by the company. Eventually, Lena said, "Just a couple more silly little questions for all you Free Staters. Are you troubled at all about taking all these babies away from their mothers on the boats?"

"Not at all," Mrs. Alschule said calmly. "As to child-raising, all the sinful women on the boats are good for milk, and that is what is taken from them. We don't need them to teach their babies how to be immoral."

"But the children are being sent to the SDSA and other sinful places; why can't you send the children to relatives of the women on the boats?"

"Because the families of those women do not want the reminder of their sinful children," Mrs. Altschule said.

"And because they can be sold at a profit and the population curve in the Free States is already insane given the generally high birth rates and to some extent for another reason that you might guess if you remember what I told you in Hamburg," Dr. Galton said.

"Because you want white children with conservative genetics to go to the Social Democratic States, the Pacific and Mountain States and the EU?" Lena guessed.

"Yes, our leaders are concerned about the Free States being the only conservative, god-fearing, white country left in the world given that the birthrate among women of European origin in the SDSA, the PMSA and the EU is so pitiful and all the pale women in those countries seem to be lesbians. The future belongs to those who have children, and pale women in those places feel that they have plenty of children if they have one."

"And you really believe that there is such a thing as race and that it makes a difference as to a person's character what her skin color is?"

"I don't," Dr. Galton said, "but many others do, even if they don't want to lead with that explanation for the need to keep slaves breeding when talking to an outsider like you, especially like you."

"That is a lie," Rev. Loman said, "it is a question of placing children born of sinful mothers outside the Free States where they will do less harm. Race has nothing to do with it. Neck, Galton and Klug, all the cynics who did not favor the national divorce but now are profiting from it, give the wrong impression."

"Oh, I give up. It has been a lovely gathering Mrs. Altschule," Lena said. "But now I really must get back to my hotel and prepare for the trip home."

THE DEVIL WEARS COWBOY BOOTS

Lena worked out as usual in the hotel gym. She was leaving the Tunica, Mississippi resort where she had stayed, having finished her tour and her investigations. She wrote short letters to her parents, to Frau Sprengler and Killer, and had a light breakfast. It was less than an hour's drive to the airport, where Seele would meet her in a souvenir shop with the data on the wrongful convictions of hundreds of women held in penal servitude on the boats.

Lena had felt somehow in the restaurant in the hotel that everybody was looking at her; everyone knew who she was and wanted to rip off her protection before they took everything from her. She told herself it was just paranoia.

She had also thought about how little progress had been made in the last twenty years. There were the drugs to prolong female fertility and the potency of old men and the improved border surveillance, as though mankind really needed any of that. There was good testing for venereal disease and cures. These last things were helpful, but generally, all the wars blowing up scientists and data centers and the calculated ignorance of many world leaders had left humanity less well off than it had been when Lena was born in 2010. The heat in the south and all the storms worldwide were adding poverty, cultural conflicts and economic pressure everywhere.

When Lena got back to her room, she found a note. On the note was "SHTF, Hawley waiting at the airport, get out of hotel asap. Leave no evidence."

Lena felt like Alice in Wonderland after she had found another sign reading "Eat me" or "Drink me." There was nothing to validate the message. On the other hand, there was no reason to believe it was false. Lena knew that Seele had friends, and only someone who knew the situation could have given her such advice. She wondered, how extensive is the Free States underground?

I am almost surely gefickt, Lena thought. I do not need to be at the airport before 2:30. I will just get out of the hotel now and see what develops for a few hours. Before leaving her room, she burnt the note.

Lena did not like the looks of a guy across the street who looked like he came out of "Deliverance" as she departed the hotel. Still, she walked normally toward the river and was pleased that it did not seem like anyone was following.

Just what can I do? If there are Schupos (cops) at the airport and cops coming to the hotel, what options do I have? Lena nervously climbed a levee.

Lena sat on top of a levee and looked at the Mississippi. I guess I can try to hitchhike across Tennessee and Kentucky and see if I can sneak into the SDSA somewhere near Louisville. I guess I might as well try that. With luck, I will not be murdered. I might get lucky and find someone going to Louisville who could smuggle me in. I do not have the tracking chips the Free State women have.

As she contemplated that, she saw a black SUV drive up and park at the base of the levee. A man got out. Lena glanced at the man, and instantly, every problem seemed solved. It was Larry Lee Lewis, aka Killer. She knew his walk from 200 yards without a second's thought.

Killer climbed the levee as Lena had done.

"Oh, my love, I am so happy to see you. How did you know I needed you here?" Lena said.

"I guessed you'd be here. I get the police wires, Lena. Sheriff Hawley and his pals in Tennessee have every flight north blocked at Memphis International. Sheriff Tauro has contacted the local sheriff in Tunica County, who is now knocking on your door at the resort. Worst, there is a carload of stoners and other self-appointed protectors of the community who have been alerted by a lookout who was outside your hotel. They are heading this way in two pickups. They plan to rape you and drown you in the river. They should arrive in a few minutes," Killer answered.

"Can we get in your car and get to Louisville?"

"Conceivably, we could, Lena, but that's not what is going to happen."

"What do you mean, Lewis?"

"I mean," Killer said, "That you are under arrest."